Rugby on the Beach

This year the Emperor has been down the beach quite allot with his mate Gilbert. Just ladish hi-jinks. Practicing his spin-passses and drop-kicks. Its been fun and other friends of the imperial court have always been welcome to join in and be tested under the high ball.

As Old As the Hills

The flight of years cannot affect the natural beauty of Kinross-shire, nor efface the memories inspired by its historical and romantic associations. In the dim and distant pre-historic ages, when Lochleven was dotted with lake-dwellings, the Lomond, Benarty, Cleish, and Ochil Hills, looked down upon our County in the same friendly spirit with which they do to-day, and their messengers, the streams flowing into the loch, gurgle the same old song:-

"Men may come and men may go,
But we go on forever."

[Extract from the Kinorss-shire Advertiser - 12th July 1912]

Image of an Emperor: Claudius

"He was most personable, with a graceful and majestic aspect whether he sat or stood, but especially when he lay in repose; for he was tall, but not thin. His countenance was lively, his grey hair becoming, and he had a round full neck. But his knees were feeble and failed him in walking, so that his gait was unsteady, both when he assumed state and when he was taking diversion. He was indecent and unseemly in his mirth, and especially so in his anger, under the influence of which he foamed at the mouth and discharged from his nostrils. He also stammered in his speech, and had a tremulous motion of the head at all times, but particularly when he engaged in any business, however trifling."

[Suetonius, Claudius, 29]

The New Age

Today in town - while battling through crowds of zombie shoppers - I was overcome by a most shocking noise!

Was it a car horn, or perhaps the intruder alarm from a high street shop? Whatever it was, I cannot say.

However, I was struck with a profound understanding that nothing following would be the same again.

"... the most striking phenomenon of all was when the sound of a trumpet rang out from a perfectly clear and cloudless sky with a shrill, prolonged and dismal note so loud that people were driven half crazy with terror. The Etruscan wise men declared that this portent foretold a change over into a new age and a total revolution in the world. According to them there are eight ages in all. In each age the lives and manners of men are different and God has established for each age a definate span of time which is determined by the circuit of the Great Year. Whenever this circuit comes to an end and another begins some marvelious sign appears either on earth or in the heavens so that it becomes at once clear to those that have made a thorough study of the subject that men of a differnt character and way of life have now come into the world and the gods will be either more or less concerned with this new race than they were with their predecessors."

[Plutrach, Life of Sulla, 7]

Halloween 2009

This year I came over all strange feeling around Halloween!
It could have been something I ate? Perhaps those Mini Babybells had been at the bottom of my bag for a couple of days longer than was prudent!

Whatever it was, I certainly felt off colour for a bit and I was subject to some rather strange and powerful impulses [the less said the better]!

Anyway - I was back to normal the next day and I reasoned that I never really had been that close with my neighbours anyway.

Its strange the sudden turns that can come over a young emperor. Suddenly I have a bit more understanding for my distant uncles Caligula and Nero.

[Max Schreck's iconic Nosferatu]

Augustus on Friends

"He did not easily or quickly form friendships with any person, but maintained them with great constancy; not only honouring the virtue and merits of his friends as they deserved, but bearing likewise with their faults and vices provided that they did not overpower the good in them."

[Suetonius, Augustus, 66]

Happy Birthday to Me.

This Summer saw the passing of my 34th birthday and I have to confess I felt a little funny about it.

In a self-reflective mood, I asked myself the typical questions that one does at such moments: was I getting too old? ; had life been passing me by a bit? ; and what had I achieved to date?

It was while posing such questions that I was reminded of the reported words of my great, great ... [etc] uncle Caesar, of whom it was said that:

"... when he was in Spain and had some leisure he was reading some part of the history of Alexander and, after sitting for a long time lost in his own thoughts, burst into tears. His friends were surprised and asked him the reason. 'Don't you think', he said, 'that I have something worth being sorry about,when I reflect that at my age Alexander was already king over so many peoples, while I have never yet achieved anything really remarkable?'

Alexander died at the startlingly young age of 33, having conquered much of the known world. Julius Caesar however, did not even embark upon the great period of his career until he was well into his 40's and indeed did not reach the pinnacle of that career until into his 60's!

Its classical musings such as these that re-assure a young emperor and remind me that there is no fixed age at which one can flourish.